THI TV: Brown With Program Updates, Q&A, Plus Our Report

CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Football Coach Mack Brown met with the media Wednesday afternoon at the Kenan Football Center

Brown was available in advance interviews with UNC’s six new transfers into the program.

Above is video from Brown’s presser/Q&A session, and below are some notes from what he had to say:

*The Heels4Life NIL collective “Hold The Line” initiative to raise $1 million in January was a success, and the effort now is underway to reach a goal of $5 million by this spring is doing well, Brown discussed.

Having a quality NIL collective program is paramount to success in college football, and is an area in which UNC was well behind. It has made progress over the last year, with the recent heavy push a move toward the future.

“Everybody’s got to be on board for NIL,” Brown said. “It’s a new thing, (but) it’s real, it’s here. There will probably be changes over the next few years, but in this transition period, we’ve got to stay up. And we’re working really, really hard to make sure our NIL collective is as good or better than the others that are out there.

“And that’s something that we got a little bit behind with. Really excited about right now. So, this is a step in the right direction.”

*Several staff changes have occurred since we last spoke with Brown. He addressed each Wednesday:

-Corey Holliday served as the Associate Athletic Director for Football Administration since 2006. A former All-ACC WR at UNC, Holliday recently decided to retire and plans to watch his youngest son, Nicholas, launch into his professional soccer career.

“It’s emotional for me when you have him as a great player and a captain and a leader, and then you come back and he’s one of the top leaders in our building for our football program…

“We’ll restructure the staff, and a lot of staff members will get added responsibilities, starting with Pat Suddes, because Pat does such a tremendous job for us. We’ll just make it work within the building.”

-Darrell Moody spent 31 years coaching in college, including 11 at UNC in multiple stints. He was an NFL scout for 17 years as well. Recently, he served as Senior Advisor to the Head Coach under Brown starting in December of 2018. Moody is fully retiring.

“That’s been in the works for about a year. Darrell wants to go play more golf, take some time off… Darrell’s done a tremendous job for us with our guys helping transition them for the NFL and giving them information.”

-Sparky Woods has coached for 40 years including as head coach at Appalachian State, South Carolina, and VMI. Woods served as a Senior Advisor to the Head Coach under Brown starting in 2019. He still wants to coach, and is looking for that kind of opportunity.

“He’s done a lot of great things here, but Sparky’s a coach, and he wants to coach and get on the field, and I totally understand that as well.”

-Brown hired former UNC All-American and NFL linebacker Brian Simmons to replace Moody. Simmons will serve as Senior Advisor to the Head Coach/Pro Liaison.

“He basically takes Coach Moody’s place. And with that, what we will do, is he will also be involved in evaluation for the portal. He’s got such great experience. He’s obviously a legendary Tar Heel, first-team All-American, he’s in our ring of honor, first round (NFL) draft pick, 10-year NFL veteran, and eight years experience as an NFL scout, and eight years experience as a high school coach.

“He fits this role perfectly. He and Darrell are very good friends. They used to travel together with all of the scouting stuff, so it will be a seamless transition.”

*Originally, spring practice was going to start in early March with the spring game on April 13, but Brown and his staff decided to push it back to help with added strength and conditioning before getting into full practice.

Brown said practice starts March 19 and the spring game is April 20.

*Brown didn’t shy from having to deal with why the program started 9-1 in 2022 and lost its last four games, and why it began this past season 6-0 before dropping five of its last seven contests.

“We’re so close, we’re so close. We’ve got so many great things going, but we’ve got to uncover every little stone to figure out what we can do to change the narrative. We’re evaluating everything.

“And then you’ve got to win close games when you don’t play well. We’re not going to play well all the time. When we played well offensively, we’d usually win, we weren’t good enough on defense, so we lost.

“What we’ve got to do is get better on defense, be more like we were two years ago in special teams, because we weren’t as good this year. And then we’ve got to learn as coaches how to do a better job in tight ballgames where we’re not playing well and figure out a way to win it.”

*As for the portal, Brown said in December bringing in a running back, some offensive linemen and defensive linemen were the mission, and he is confident they have satisfied two of those needs. They are still looking to add a defensive lineman or two when the portal opens up again after spring practice concludes.

The Heels4Life success allows the staff to be active in the spring portal depending on needs, Brown said.

“It will help us. We need to get another million dollars. We need to get a minimum of $5 million. And then you’ve got to be able to have retention of your roster. I mean, that’s really important now. We lost Diego (Pounds).

“And then you’ve got to factor at the end of spring practice, because you start the next cycle of transfer portal. And I think it’s even more expensive for guys in the second phase of the transfer portal because guys that didn’t get what they wanted to in the first part and go through spring practice and see how desperate they are to get somebody at that position.

“So, we’ve got to be more competitive in those areas.”

*Brown was asked about the changing landscape and if he might get to a point where the balance of it just might not be fun anymore and he would walk away.

“You get up in the morning and we all need a purpose, and right now, I have a purpose in helping our guys and helping North Carolina Football. It’s better than it was when we got here. Facilities are better, we’re playing better, we’re so close; I want to get it where we want it.

“I think everybody got mad at me when I said eight wins is pretty good around here, and the truth is it has been. That’s who we’ve been on the good years. And the truth is, that’s not what we came back for, that’s not good enough. We want to win all the games.”